External hard drive for expanding iTunes library?

Get an external HDD box like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146602

Then put a 400GB ATA HDD in it for around $110, such as this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822152043

This combo will set you back around $150 and will work with both USB and firewire. (I use it with firewire on my Mac, and it works great.) Very quiet and a cinch to install.

I agree with Herman that you do need an additional one for backups.

Michael

Heat is the enemy of hard drives. Unless it has a fan I would not get a box like Michael recommends. A sealed box is Ok for occasional backup use but if it is on all the time then it must be ventilated.

Thanks for the links Michael. I learned something new and I like the price and serviceablity of the products. But I'm still hoping for comments on the G-DRIVE 500GB which is claimed to dissipate heat well. I don't mind spending more money for quality and reliability. And it seem the consensus is I'll need to buy two hard drives; one active and one for back up. I know this guy who keeps his back-up HD in a safe deposit box and weekly updates it. I'm not ready to go that far.

I don't have any experience with the G-drive but it seems to be quite expensive. I respectfully disagree with the poster who said that an external hard drive needs a fan. Hard drives (and computer components in general) are much more rugged than we think. Hard drives are very reliable (certainly much more reliable than vacuum tubes). I have an old computer that kept killing its fans 7 years ago. I finally took the fans out and left the machine for dead, with its 2 hard drives, performing non-critical functions such as the print server and such. Running 24/7 in the 7 years since then, the system continues to function fine. And if you've ever taken apart an external hard drive enclosure shortly after the drive was running, you can pull the HD out and it just feels warm, not hot, to the touch.

Look at it this way: For the price of the G-drive, you could have TWO external hard drives (in other words, you would have the backup unit). Drives don't fail often (user error is a more common reason for data loss), but if it did you'd at least have 2nd drive as the backup.

It all depends on how much you want to spend. If you are OK with the price of the G-drive, then by all means get it. Then get a comparable sized drive for a backup. Simple as that.

Michael

Michael, your advice runs contrary to everything I have ever read on this subject including advice from IT professionals. The difference in $ between running them in a well ventilated box versus the cheaper sealed ones is not much. Why would you want to tempt fate and go against conventional wisdom to save a few cents?

BTW I have taken a hard drive from a sealed external enclosure and it was much warmer than when I ran the drive outside the box. It is a well established fact that running them hotter than you have to shortens their life.